1. Field of The Invention
This invention relates to the use of entomopathogenic fungi in insect control and, more particularly, to the harvesting and subsequent treatment of cultured mycelia.
2. Description of The Art
Heretofore it was thought that since the resting spore was responsible for long term survival of the fungi, it was the most durable stage to produce, formulate and apply for insect control. The major problem has been to develop suitable methods to break resting spore dormancy. The use of other states of the fungi was believed impractical since they could not be produced in any way which would allow storage. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,021,306 and 4,026,765 disclose production and germination of Entomophthorales resting spores. As with past research, current investigations are focused on the resting spore stage probably because the delicate and ephemeral nature of the vegetative stages of the Entomophthorales is well-known and it was not thought that these fungal states could be processed and used as a basis for a mycoinsecticide.